“The Wonders” is a special creation that demands a certain level of patience with its winding, almost directionless storytelling. There are many subplots and feelings to explore, but its primary focus remains on a coming-of-age tale concerning a teen girl in the midst of an adolescent awakening while living in a painfully remote part of the world. “The Wonders” is shapeless, but it has meaning and sensitivity, better with moments of contemplation and familial interaction than it is with a larger depiction of dysfunction. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Laurie Anderson is a performance artist and a musician, nurturing an impressive four-decade-long career of artistic endeavors. She’s a spiky-haired avant-garde original who lives to disrupt expectations, with her latest work, “Heart of a Dog,” one of her most baffling. While it appears on the outside to be an appreciation of animal companionship, finding Anderson in a sentimental mood, “Heart of a Dog” immediately sheds expectations to become something more in step with the performer’s appetite for the surreal. It’s certainly emotional at times, but the feature is primarily a sensorial immersion into life, death, and all the strangeness the makes up the post-9/11 human experience, with Anderson deploying animation, home movies, and abstract footage to carry viewers into the warm waters of the unknown. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

In 1990, the story of Reggie and Ronnie Kray, the twin gangsters of 1960s London, was explored in “The Krays,” which starred Gary and Martin Kemp, from the band Spandau Ballet. Acting efforts are substantially accelerated in “Legend,” which does away with twinning to focus on star Tom Hardy, who portrays both Reggie and Ronnie in a bruisingly seductive manner only he can pull off. Casting works wonderfully, but “Legend” is an extremely difficult movie. Imagining the Krays as a bottomless pool of interesting behaviors and impulses, the feature doesn’t make much sense of their criminal reign, cherry picking the highlights of their madness without establish context, making the picture feel frustratingly incomplete. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

In 2006, Sylvester Stallone pulled off the impossible. With “Rocky Balboa,” the screen icon revived a dying franchise with a sincere final chapter, aging his most famous character gracefully, adding some necessary lumps to the boxing champion with a picture that returned Rocky to his roots. Of course, there’s trepidation with “Creed,” which arrives nearly a decade after Rocky enjoyed a respectful send-off. And yet, under the care of co-writer/director Ryan Coogler (“Fruitvale Station”), the brand name returns to glory, albeit under a different boxer’s name. Against all odds, “Creed” emerges as a powerhouse continuation of Stallone’s creation, carrying all the fire and emotion of the original 1976 movie while reworking irresistible formula for a new generation of underdog cinema. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

For the first time in their history, Pixar Animation is releasing two films during a single calendar year. “Inside Out” was the first one out of the gate, unleashed last June to universal critical acclaim and blockbuster box office, making it third highest grossing effort from the company, reestablishing its creative and financial dominance after taking 2014 off. “The Good Dinosaur” is the quick follow-up, and it’s a simpler, more traditional tale of adventure and maturation, moving away from the sophisticated emotionality and world-building of “Inside Out.” While it plays on a more recognizable level of engagement, “The Good Dinosaur” still manages to showcase Pixar pride, sustaining their reputation for quality entertainment as it careens from sensitivity to surprisingly dark elements of antagonism, displaying a little more menace than the title suggests. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Sensing a good thing with the reimagining of “Sherlock Holmes,” screenwriter Max Landis gives the same treatment to the legacy of Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel, “Frankenstein.” Adding adventure and scientific smarts to his reworking of the original story and its many cinematic adaptations and perversions, Landis gets lost early, attempting to pack in a myriad of ideas to help sympathies and surprises, laboring to deliver a fresh take on old material. “Victor Frankenstein” doesn’t work, but its ambition is encouraging, along with an interest in practical effects to bring the goopy particulars of mad science to the screen. However, tedium soon topples the effort, which fights to make a viable movie out of a grab bag of ideas. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

The great journalism films make the audience feel like they’ve joined the hunt for truth, embedded alongside bleary-eyed, rumpled writers as they pore through tips and research, trying to shape a viable story out of bits and pieces of evidence. “Spotlight” is such a movie, carrying itself with confidence as it explores the delicate subject of molestation and the Catholic Church. Co-writer/director Tom McCarthy doesn’t lunge for incendiary material, instead building an atmosphere of unease, developing the case along with the reporters. “Spotlight” is sharp and flawlessly performed, joining the ranks of exceptional journalism pictures with its commitment to procedure and willingness to investigate both the guilty and those looking to expose them. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Writer/director Billy Ray (“Breach,” “Shattered Glass”) is asking for trouble with “Secret in Their Eyes.” A remake of a terrific 2009 Argentinean film, the update has the impossible task of domesticating material that was best served in its native country, which offered twists, turns, and memorable locations. The new “Secret in Their Eyes” is a flatter, blunter object, laboring to recreate the same Double Dutch routine of mixed timelines and pained lives, brightened considerably by periodic surges of suspense. Ray doesn’t completely wipe out, but inertia is the feature’s greatest enemy, somehow conjuring monotony when handling a fairly eventful story. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

“Brooklyn” shares an old-fashioned story of love and personal awakening. It’s a simple tale with complex but relatable emotions, sold expertly by director John Crowley (“Intermission”) and screenwriter Nick Hornby (“High Fidelity,” “Wild”), who respect the classic cinema tempo of the material, laboring to realize a level of innocence that’s rarely attempted anymore. “Brooklyn” is lovely work, sensitive and evocative, always downplaying the potential for melodrama to find the truth of the moment. Moviegoers often caught complaining that “they don’t make ‘em like they used to” should make attendance a priority, as failure to support such endearing, achingly human filmmaking only hastens its obsolescence. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com